Excel Tip: Avoid Other People’s Mistakes

Problem: A reader posed the following question: “I regularly get files from other people in my company. They arrive via Outlook or are download them from an Internet site. I worry that people aren’t smart enough to avoid getting vi­ruses or could maliciously slip something bad into the Workbook_O...

By Bill Jelen • Sept. 4, 2014

Fed Passes Revised Liquidity Rule for Big Banks

The liquidity coverage ratio, designed to prevent the cash squeeze that brought some banks to their knees during the financial crisis, is finally here.The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency voted Wednesday to force big banks to hold enough liquid assets, such as Tre...

By Iris Dorbian • Sept. 3, 2014

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

JPMorgan’s Balance Sheet Reflects Operating Risk Worries

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says his firm is investing billions of dollars to streamline its compliance and IT security operations, but that doesn’t mean federal regulators believe those solutions will lessen the financial heavyweight’s risk profile.JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon In fact, base...

By Iris Dorbian • Sept. 3, 2014

Mobile Payments Could Become Mainstream with iPhone 6

As excitement mounts over Apple’s September 9 press event, in which the computer behemoth is expected to unveil the iPhone 6, several news outlets are reporting that American Express, Visa and MasterCard may be partnering with the company to create a mobile wallet on the latest iPhone upgrade.The...

By Iris Dorbian • Sept. 2, 2014

How Benchmarking Can Lead You Astray

Two years ago, the chief information officer of a Fortune 20 company whom I have known for many years asked me to take a look at benchmarking his IT organization against its peers.On the surface, this was a reasonable request. It was the start of a new long-term strategic planning and budgeting c...

By John Parkinson • Sept. 2, 2014

Middle-Market Execs Bullish About Financing

Middle-market executives are confident about their ability to secure financing and close deals before the end of the year, according to a new study by accounting firm CohnReznick.Nearly 20% of those polled said they will probably engage in some kind of financing deal over the next six months. The...

By Iris Dorbian • Sept. 1, 2014

Lower Corporate Tax Receipts Boost U.S. Deficit Estimate

While the Congressional Budget Office is holding to its forecast for a reduced U.S. federal budget deficit this year, the CBO has had to boost its estimate from the forecast made in April, according to Tax.com. Why? The increase stems mostly from lower-than-anticipated receipts from corporate inc...

By Iris Dorbian • Sept. 1, 2014

How to Stop Inversions: Abolish Corporate Income Tax

There is a simple solution that would halt the seemingly unending wave of tax inversion deals, says Forbes contributor Brett Arends. Get rid of the corporate income tax.Not only would this remedy stanch the exodus of American companies, the latest aspirant being Burger King, from fleeing U.S. sho...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 28, 2014

SEC Spells Out How Rating Agencies Must Reveal Conflicts of Interest

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday issued new rules spelling out what credit rating agencies must do if a conflict of interest has influenced a rating given to a company.Mary Jo White One of the new rules, for instance, requires that if the rating agency finds out, via an internal r...

By David Katz • Aug. 28, 2014

Health Insurers Pay More Taxes under Obamacare

Health insurers are paying more taxes than they would have without a provision of the Affordable Care Act that took effect last year, according to a new study. The report, by the Institute for Policy Studies, addresses the impact of the provision, which wiped out the insurers’ corporate tax deduc...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 27, 2014

Aversion to Inversions

The tax rate Medtronic would pay in the United States after its merger with Covidien would be the same as it was before it, Medtronic CFO Gary Ellis insisted.Coming as it did in mid-June, as the controversy over corporate inversions was heating up, the argument that Ellis made was significant. A ...

By David Katz • Aug. 27, 2014

Amazon Plunges into M&A, Buys Big Gamer

In a departure from its usual M&A strategy, e-commerce giant Amazon has purchased three-year-old San Francisco-based Twitch, a video platform and online community for gamers, for about $970 million in cash, according to Reuters. The value of the acquisition could exceed $1 billion once execut...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 26, 2014

Canada Inversions Beckon While White House Seethes

With Burger King planning to relocate there after completing its buy of coffee-and-donut chain Tim Hortons for about $11.4 billion, Canada is emerging as the latest tax haven for U.S. firms fleeing a high tax code at home, according to a Bloomberg report.Despite likely objections here to the late...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 26, 2014

Small-Business Credit Picked Up in Second Quarter

Good news for small businesses. After experiencing a miserable first quarter this year due to harsh weather conditions, small business credit had a nice rebound in the second quarter. In fact, according to the Experian/Moody Analytics Small Business Credit Index, this sector’s credit conditions h...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 26, 2014

The Global Crackdown on Profit Shifting

Do you have responsibility, whether direct or dotted line, for the tax function in your company?Does your company have, or plan to have, operations outside the United States? If so, you need to know about a significant global tax initiative.The initiative is known as the “base erosion and profit ...

By Joan C. Arnold and Kevin M. Johnson • Aug. 25, 2014

Burger King May Join the Tax Inversion Party

Along with civil unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and the ongoing crises in Ukraine and the Middle East, another piece of news today may make President Obama’s first day back from vacation a bit less than cheery.It looks like yet another tax inversion deal might be in the works. Fast-food franchisor Burg...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 25, 2014

Microsoft Loads Up Its Offshore Cash Stash

In an interesting counterpoint to the recent flurry of tax inversion deals, Microsoft is among many U.S. companies with big cash hordes overseas. It’s pile is just bigger than most: almost $93 billion, Business Insider reported. Were the money brought back to the United States, the software giant...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 25, 2014

Do Buffett’s Compliance Lapses Show Management Flaws?

Even investing gurus like Warren Buffett are capable of oversight errors. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway failed simple compliance rules by missing deadline filings for investments in specialty chemicals giant Dow Chemical and construction materials provider USG Corp., Bloomberg reported. The latter...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 22, 2014

U.S. Leads Industrialized Nations in Corporate Tax Rates

The United States has the highest corporate income tax rate among the 34 industrialized nations of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the world trade group, says a new paper from the Tax Foundation.Among 163 countries worldwide, the United States has the third-highest top m...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 22, 2014

Until November, It’s Status Quo in Congress

If you’re worried about the federal government shutting down before the end of the year, don’t be. According to Forbes, that most likely won’t happen. Unfortunately, aside from passing one or two continuing resolutions, not much else will be happening in Congress either after it returns from summ...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 20, 2014

Forecasting Error Cost Walgreen’s CFO His Job

The reason for Wade Miquelon’s recent, sudden departure from Walgreen, where he was CFO, was a drastically wrong financial forecast, the Wall Street Journal reported.Former Walgreen CFO Wade Miquelon Miquelon had forecast in April that the drugstore chain’s pharmacy division would show $8.5 billi...

By David McCann • Aug. 20, 2014

Bleak Week for Three Retailers

Three major retailers are having a less-than-stellar week. Staples said it will close about 140 stores this year, while Lowe’s and Target have respectively lowered their sales and earnings forecasts, Bloomberg reports.Staples, which in March announced plans to shutter 225 stores in North America,...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 20, 2014

Inversions Motivated by Overseas Cash Hoards?

Could it be that contrary to common assumption, the reason large U.S. companies are buying firms overseas and redomiciling there — called an inversion — is not so they can be more competitive with global peers by avoiding the 35% federal corporate tax rate?Edward Kleinbard That seemingly radical ...

By David McCann • Aug. 19, 2014

Will Banks Pay Up for a New, Improved Libor?

If your bank wants to price your loan off Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate), it may have to pay a fee. And that may lead it to ditch the interest-rate benchmark altogether, according to banking lobbyists.The American Bankers Association says now that the Intercontinental Exchange has added li...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 19, 2014

DreamWorks Animation Names New CFO

DreamWorks Animation has named Fazal Merchant as its new chief financial officer. Merchant is replacing current CFO Lew Coleman, who has become the Glendale, Calif-based company’s new vice chairman.A promotion for the film “Turbo.” Merchant’s appointment comes on the heels of the studio making se...

By Iris Dorbian • Aug. 19, 2014